In the Country of Men
By Hisham Matar
The Dial Press, 2007
Hardcover, 256 pgs., $22

Book review by AUSTIN WALTERS
Contributing Writer

Set in Muammar Qaddafi’s Libya in the late 1970s, Hisham Matar’s debut novel focuses on the personal and political trials of a family caught in the crosshairs of a paranoid and ruthless government. In the Country of Men is narrated by a man in his mid-20s living in Cairo and reflecting on the events leading up to his escape from Libya as a 9-year-old boy.

In this impressive coming-out, Mater contrasts the innocence of youth with the force of a brutal military dictatorship. Suleiman is a fairly typical boy, going to school, playing in the streets, and spending long summer days with his best friend, Kareem. He worries a little about his mother’s odd illness (alcoholism) and misses his father (called Baba) during the long business trips he takes away from the family.

But Sule’s simple world is turned upside down when he catches a fleeting glimpse of his father, wearing dark glasses and entering a building in the center of town, during the time he was supposed to be away on business. Anger and confusion passes, and Sule suddenly suspects his family is in grave danger.

Later as Sule and his friends play in the street, a government car appears and a group of threatening-looking men pile out. They enter a home and drag out Kareem’s father, brutalizing him on the way to the car. Nothing is announced about the arrest, but the rumors spread, naming Kareem’s father as a traitor and enemy of the government.

The event unnerves the community, as neighbors start prying into each other’s lives and informing on friends. When the same dark car pulls up in front of Sule’s house, it becomes clear that his father is the next victim. The ensuing violence resonates beyond the bloody events themselves to an assault on heart and mind for all involved.

Kareem’s father is later hanged on public television and Baba is tortured so severely he returns nearly unrecognizable. During the long healing process, Sule’s parents begin to plan for an escape from Libya, finding ways to avoid tapped telephone lines, suspicious neighbors, and random informants. Because it’s too dangerous for the entire family to go, his parents send him alone, to be raised in Cairo by trusted friends.

Still in Cairo nearly 20 years later, Sule remembers knowing that he would never see his father again. He knew “that he would die while I was installed alone in a foreign country to thrive away from the madness.” Suleiman’s bewilderment speaks volumes: He’s torn from his family as a boy, and forced to think like an adult in order to survive.

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Matar wrests beauty from terror and loss and shows a rare and meaningful glimpse of Qaddafi’s Libya. A biography published on the Booker Prize website talks about the author’s Libyan father (a dissident living in Cairo) who was kidnapped and taken back to Libya in the ’90s. After being tortured and imprisoned, he has not been heard from since 1995. Bearing witness to the inhumanity and horror of a tyrannical government, Hisham Matar’s heartfelt In the Country of Men is not to be forgotten.